The year is 2005, I am 12 and hungry. The sun is up and I have just licked of the plate clean, no evidence of my illegal second share. Yet my stomach won't just shut up. I look at the queue leading to the dining hall, its reasonably long. I get creative. Maybe the cook has not registered my face. But its dangerous given that I had already gone for a second share. The fact that I had been arrested thrice the previous week just made it even riskier to go for a third share. To add on that, the same cook who was serving had caught me pants down stealing remains of food from the staffroom earlier on that term. All odds were playing against me. My stomach growled again as if telling me "Be a man!"
I was in Nzoia Sugar Co. Primary School, an institution buried at the heart of a vast sugarcane plantation. Hunger pangs tend to be sharper at such remote places. Our class, STD 7W was popularly known for being masters of disguise while going for second shares. The boys would go at all lengths including soiling our faces to avoid recognition. The boarding master who also doubled up as the canteen man even tried to de-worm us to rid us of this gluttonous behavior. Wandera was his name. On the day that we were to be de-wormed, we ran away from school and spent the better part of the day in the sugarcane plantation. Our reason for escaping this medical procedure was because of Ojago whose dad was apparently a doctor. Ojago had narrated to us in gory detail how worms would crawl out every opening in our malnourished bodies once we took the deworming pill. Who wouldn't trust a medical opinion? So two of my cousins and I took to the Greenwich meridian, for that is how we referred to the plantation.
It was therefore not a surprise that I wanted to risk my life and go for a third share. We had survived solely on sugar-canes the previous day... The grumbling in my stomach made me wish i had rather had worms crawling out of my ears! I could not take this.
Hunger can make one creative. I went back in Starehe House and took out my checked green shirt. This was a clad we were to wear only on weekends. Feeling like a chameleon on a wall, i confidently marched back to the queue with my licked plate shining in the sun. My heart was racing faster as we approached the counter. Maybe this was a bad Idea. "Maybe not.." said the voice in my belly.
My turn came. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The cook, Musa, was looking directly into my scared eyes as he dug the serving plate into the cake of rice. Just as he was about to put it on my clean-licked plate, he stopped. I was about to run for it when the other cook, Eliud, got hold of my hand.
"Marango!" he screamed for the third cook who was chopping cabbages with an axe, to come into the arresting party. My panic went wild when Marango approached still holding the axe in his hand! I had to defend my self...
"Wait!" I shouted. I had not yet broken my voice.
"Hii ni seki!" Musa said reaching for a pipe. My bladder gave way. This is why you should visit the loo before embarking on such a dangerous mission!
"I am not the one!" my soprano rang the air, "the one who was here had a sky blue shirt, I am wearing a checked green shirt!"
They stopped, thinking through my explanation.
"How did you know the 'other one' had a sky blue shirt?" Marango asked. What followed was the worst beating I have ever received in a kitchen... well, the only beating I have ever received in a kitchen.... True story.
I was in Nzoia Sugar Co. Primary School, an institution buried at the heart of a vast sugarcane plantation. Hunger pangs tend to be sharper at such remote places. Our class, STD 7W was popularly known for being masters of disguise while going for second shares. The boys would go at all lengths including soiling our faces to avoid recognition. The boarding master who also doubled up as the canteen man even tried to de-worm us to rid us of this gluttonous behavior. Wandera was his name. On the day that we were to be de-wormed, we ran away from school and spent the better part of the day in the sugarcane plantation. Our reason for escaping this medical procedure was because of Ojago whose dad was apparently a doctor. Ojago had narrated to us in gory detail how worms would crawl out every opening in our malnourished bodies once we took the deworming pill. Who wouldn't trust a medical opinion? So two of my cousins and I took to the Greenwich meridian, for that is how we referred to the plantation.
It was therefore not a surprise that I wanted to risk my life and go for a third share. We had survived solely on sugar-canes the previous day... The grumbling in my stomach made me wish i had rather had worms crawling out of my ears! I could not take this.
Hunger can make one creative. I went back in Starehe House and took out my checked green shirt. This was a clad we were to wear only on weekends. Feeling like a chameleon on a wall, i confidently marched back to the queue with my licked plate shining in the sun. My heart was racing faster as we approached the counter. Maybe this was a bad Idea. "Maybe not.." said the voice in my belly.
My turn came. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The cook, Musa, was looking directly into my scared eyes as he dug the serving plate into the cake of rice. Just as he was about to put it on my clean-licked plate, he stopped. I was about to run for it when the other cook, Eliud, got hold of my hand.
"Marango!" he screamed for the third cook who was chopping cabbages with an axe, to come into the arresting party. My panic went wild when Marango approached still holding the axe in his hand! I had to defend my self...
"Wait!" I shouted. I had not yet broken my voice.
"Hii ni seki!" Musa said reaching for a pipe. My bladder gave way. This is why you should visit the loo before embarking on such a dangerous mission!
"I am not the one!" my soprano rang the air, "the one who was here had a sky blue shirt, I am wearing a checked green shirt!"
They stopped, thinking through my explanation.
"How did you know the 'other one' had a sky blue shirt?" Marango asked. What followed was the worst beating I have ever received in a kitchen... well, the only beating I have ever received in a kitchen.... True story.
No comments:
Post a Comment